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Amber Hoffelder |
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Participants Summer Internships 2003 Main Page
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My internship was in the research department with the cell culture group. In this group, new media and cell culture processes are continually being developed. I specifically worked on a new product line of fortified media called MegaCell. Since many problems have arisen with the use of fetal bovine serum (FBS) in media, Sigma decided to develop new media that could be used with much lower levels of serum. All of my experiments were performed on mammalian cell lines using T-flasks. When growing cells, all work must be performed under a flow hood that blows sterile air over your workspace. Many have said that sterile work is an art, because so much care must be taken to not contaminate your experiment. I mainly worked in the development of application data for the MegaCell product line. My first task was to convince a customer to switch over to the new media. In order to convince them of the integrity of our new product, experiments had to be run using their cell culture methods. This job proved to be very tedious and difficult, because their methods were so unlike Sigma’s. While working on the previous project, I started work on a new assignment. The MegaCell line works with low levels of FBS, but FBS is still expensive and in short supply. Calf bovine serum (CBS) and adult bovine serum (ABS) are much less expensive, and there is a large supply available. CBS and ABS had been tested on other (unfortified) media lines, but never with the MegaCell line. I performed extensive cell culture assays using various levels of CBS and ABS on the new media. Overall, the experiment was successful and acquired data was used in the launch of the new product line. |
Over the summer, I worked at
Sigma-Aldrich in their Life Sciences department. Sigma-Aldrich is located
in St. Louis, Missouri. I had worked for Pharmacia in St. Louis the
previous summer and could not be hired back due to the Pfizer
acquisition. My former boss’s wife was gracious enough to get me an
internship at Sigma-Aldrich.